72 
SLAVES IN CHAINS. 
advice was that, though he promised he should not 
again offend, the poor women got another and more 
severe beating, and were put in the stocks to prevent 
their coming near us to complain. The class of Arabs 
we met were certainly a most degraded set, and in- 
stead of improving the country had brought ruin upon 
it by their imperiousness and cruelty. All traded 
in slaves, whom, for security's sake, they were often 
obliged to treat harshly. At Mineenga, we met 
several parties or gangs of slaves in chains, and my 
thoughts reverted to the happy village-life in our own 
country, a pleasing contrast to such painful and re- 
volting scenes. 
Clad each in a single goat-skin, the slaves kept 
themselves warm at night lying near a fire. Never 
is the chain unfastened day or night. Should one of 
the number require to move, the whole must accom- 
pany him. All ate together boiled sweet potato, or a 
spinage made from the leaves of the pumpkin plant, 
and were kept in poor condition to prevent their 
becoming troublesome. One day a woman-slave, on 
seeing our cook casting away the head of a fowl he 
had just killed, picked it up, and gave it to a poor 
convalescent slave, who grasped it with the eagerness 
of a dog. Any meat or bones left over from our 
dinner were always given them. A small lad, whose 
ears had been cut off (probably a Uganda boy), 
watched or accompanied the slaves, and treated them, 
I thought, with unfeeling coarseness. A sick slave 
having recovered, it was the boy's duty to chain him 
to his gang again, and it was grievous to see the 
rough, careless way he used the poor emaciated crea- 
ture. Beyond bringing in firewood for themselves 
